And The Wind Was Like The Regret For What Is No More

2014

New York, NY

The wind outside is the source of sound; it is the whisper that will disrupt silence. This work consists of a set of sixteen bottles – with air blowers attached to each one of them – and a wind vane. The vane is fixed on the outside of a window and detects the direction the wind is blowing. Inside of the room, the motor starts blowing air into the bottle that corresponds to that particular direction. This event generates a smooth sound, and each direction has its own pitch. The bottles are arranged in a circle, similar to the shape of the compass rose, depicting the eight principal winds and the eight half-winds.

The work explores the interaction of two invisible factors, sound and wind. It deals with the dialectics of scattered and shapeless coefficients that cannot be seen, but have an intrinsic need of existence, of being, and nothing more. To articulate these elements is to deal with the unknown, the unpredictable. It is a failed attempt to tame them, as they have an urge for expression. Gabriele d’Annunzio has said about the meaning of the wind, in a passage that named the present work:

︎

︎︎︎
︎︎︎
︎︎︎
︎︎︎  

‘And the wind was like the regret for what is no more, like the anxiety of creatures not yet formed, laden with memories, swollen with forebodings, made up of wounded souls and useless wings.’